Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle Reading App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Something we hope you'll especially enjoy: FBA items qualify for FREE Shipping and .

Presidents Herbert Clark Hoover and George Walker Bush were challenged many times during their political careers. On Floods and Photo Ops: How Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush Exploited Catastrophes focuses on the visual record of two such tests: the relief efforts led by Commerce Secretary Hoover during the 1927 Mississippi River flood and the Bush team's response to Hurricane Katrina. By concentrating on these two historic events, Paul Martin Lester discusses political photography, particularly the use of photo ops during catastrophes. He illuminates the evolution of a genre and explores the differences and similarities between these two American politicians. Hoover and Bush reached the pinnacle of political achievement, only to lose in the court of popular opinion.

From two photo ops that occurred almost eighty years apart, Lester offers a model for close readings and comparisons of images in practicing visual history. Under Lester's examination, these otherwise unremarkable photographs speak volumes about political response to natural disasters. He offers readers not just a deeper appreciation of these pictures but a methodology for seriously studying photographs and what they can reveal about a historical moment.

$45.00
FREE Shipping.
Only 1 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Gift-wrap available.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

A close study of the visual record left by political visits following disasters

About the Author

Paul Martin Lester is a professor of communications at California State University, Fullerton. He is the author of Visual Communication: Images with Messages and Photojournalism: An Ethical Approach and coeditor of Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media.

More About the Author

Paul Martin Lester is a tenured, full professor of communications at California State University, Fullerton.

After an undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and employment as a photojournalist for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, Lester received a Master's from the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. from Indiana University in mass communications.

He is the author or editor of several books including: Images that Injure Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media Third Edition with Susan Ross (2011), Visual Communication Images with Messages Fifth Edition (2010), On Floods and Photo Ops: How Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush Exploited Catastrophes (2010), Visual Journalism: A Guide for New Media Professionals with Chris Harris (2002), Desktop Computing Workbook A Guide for Using 15 Programs in Macintosh and Windows Formats (1996) and Photojournalism An Ethical Approach (1991).

He also co-wrote a monthly column, "Ethics Matters" for News Photographer magazine for the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA).

In 2006 Lester became editor of the Visual Communication Quarterly, a publication of the Visual Communication Division of the AEJMC and Taylor & Francis. He is also an elected member of the PF&R committee for the AEJMC.Lester has given speeches, presentations, and workshops throughout the United States and in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Spain, and Sweden.

His research interests include mass media ethics, new communications technologies, and visual communications.